


_Firewalker

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [30]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Gratitious Violence, Minor Sexual Content, a lot of collateral damage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-23 09:32:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3763099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might not be the end of the line, but it sure as hell feels like a very good imitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing on this on and off for a while now. I wanted to hold it back to avoid mood whiplash with some of the other stories I've planned, but I realised I can't really focus on anything else until it's done. The chronology of Brilliancy is beyond saving anyway. I'm amazed you guys still put up with it…

[takes place in early spring 2026]

* * *

The brothel's dimly lit hallway was choked with the lingering smell of human bodies, weed and cigarette smoke, the synthetic scent of air freshener mixing with cheap perfume. The prostitutes hung around their open doors, dull red light spilled out past them and burned away any individual trait they might have had, rendered them as nothing but breasts and thighs and blank faces, clothed in tacky lingerie and thick makeup.

It wasn't the most classy place in all of Chicago, but it did have some advantages which had become a rare commodity in other parts of the city, even down in the Wards. The brothel lay inside a ctOS blind spot, three streets worth without any cameras, without any surveillance other than what people carried in and out with their phones, watches or Lenses.

It was enough to give Aiden some insight of what to expect, enough to be sure he hadn't been walking into a trap when he came here half an hour before. A good place for a meet, if you didn't mind the stink or the background noise of fake moans and pathetic grunts.

Aiden stopped in the hallway, already reviewing the data on the projection made by the Lens in his left eye. Four years of cold war with DedSec and the last thing he had expected was one of them reaching out to him, giving him _this…_ if it was trap, and there was always that, it was far too good to pass up. Blume was working on something big, bigger perhaps even than the new OS they were preparing to roll out next year.

"Hey, you, don't stand there all shy," a woman's voice interrupted him. He glanced to the side and through the open doorway. A woman sat on a bed, posed in what she clearly hoped was sexy. Profiler identified her as _Lucja Karznia, 23, expired tourist visa, prostitute, last Nudle search: alien abductions treu stories._

She had two lamps behind her, one red and one purple, but neither left any details on her face visible. Feeling his scrutiny, she leaned back on her elbows and pushed her chest out a little more. "Why don't you come in?" she asked. "And close the door behind you."

She waggled her eyebrows.

Aiden held himself still. He had his phone in his hand, used the thumb to slow down the scroll of data across the Lens. A ctOS upgrade, a new line of products to go with it. Blume was finally making headway in plugging their security vulnerabilities. DedSec hadn't come to him because they wanted to make peace with him, they had come to him because they didn't know who else to turn to.

He stopped the scroll of data completely before he turned and took two steps inside, just far enough that he could pull the door closed behind him. Its lock snapped only sluggishly and it dulled the sounds coming from the occupied rooms only a little.

The prostitute put on a wide grin, immediately replaced by a harder expression when she said, "Money's up front."

Aiden had come expecting to pay for the data, but 'Dave' had been twitchy and afraid, he hadn't even asked for payment. Only criminals still used cash these days and maybe whoever inhabited the bottom of the social ladder and _wasn't_ criminal. Aiden pocketed his phone and pulled a rolled up bundle of money out. He held it up for her to see and she stood up, swiftly crossed to him and took the money, unrolling it partway. She frowned, looked from the money to him, but before she could ask anything, he took the bundle of money from her again and dropped it on the cupboard by his side. He picked up the can of spray-on from there with the same motion, stuffed it into the hand she still held out.

He was looking at what appeared to be everything DedSec had ever collected on Blume. Internal mails, dossiers, reports, proposed future projects, system schematics, programme codes. Everything he'd ever need to crack Blume, but there was nothing more recent than two months ago. No wonder DedSec was scared.

The prostitute slid a hand down his arm, pulled him back to the bed. After she worked open the clasp of his coat, she had to get of her toes despite the exaggerated heels she wore so she could brush it from his shoulders. She caught it with practiced ease and tossed it to a chair set against the wall in the shadow. She sat down on the bed, ran her fingers down his chest, didn't comment on the dense layer of his bulletproof shirt or make any attempt to push it aside. She focused instead on the zipper of his jeans, worked it down and slid her hand inside.

She was talking in what he assumed should be seductive, but it sounded rehearsed, the same, tired old speech she gave every man who walked through her door. He paid it no attention.

Aiden guessed Blume had switched up their game exactly those two months ago. He'd seen mention of a ctOS code-named 'Praeterea'. It might be a serious system upgrade, but more likely given the context was that Praeterea was an entirely new OS, one built from scratch. DedSec's system keys weren't working on it and if that was true, even T-Bone's old backdoors were becoming obsolete, depending of how much of his code they were still willing to use.

His thoughts scattered briefly under the prostitute's hot, dry fingers and he focused on the sensation instead. It had been too long, he caught himself thinking, he should be glad his body even remembered how to respond and maybe somewhat bothered by the speed of it. He listened to the hiss of the spray-on and the momentarily strange feeling of cool constriction before it dried and the sensation normalised.

Blume had their fingers in pretty much everything these days, unsurprisingly, but DedSec had unearthed a number of political proposal that didn't seem to have leaked yet. Most notably, Blume was pushing for an increase in jurisdiction for their Corporate Police and they were running their own show already. They had the right to intervene in everything which affected Blume, their hardware and infrastructure or the stability or security of their networks. They'd come far from those days when they were just a bunch of redneck thugs in the Pawnee Militia. It had caused some kind schism and at least a part of former Militia had performed a U-turn and found a new home within the offliner movement.

When the prostitute swallowed him down, a groan worked itself from somewhere deep in his chest and he put a hand to the back of her head, pushing his fingers through strands of thin, hairspray-dry hair for a better grip. He ground forward sharply, until he found her carefully controlled gag reflex and pushed harder for a moment, then used his hold on her head to pull her off him.

"Turn over," he said. "Give me the lube."

She scrambled to obey, wiping her mouth the moment her head was turned. She got up on hands and knees on the bed, reached for the lube on the bedside table, handed it over to him, but used the chance to squeeze some of it in her own hand.

The problem with Blume was, he had no idea how to solve it. If truth be told, he had hoped DedSec would give him more than a long list of failures. Blume was hemming him in, closed the doors and expanded their reach.

He slapped the prostitute's fingers away, gripped her hips and pulled her back against him, hilted himself roughly and jolted her forward on the bed. She moaned dutifully and almost got the rhythm right, too.

New hardware, Corporate Police jurisdiction, Praeterea… and that was just what he'd seen after skimming through DedSec's files for a few minutes, who knew what else was there? How long could he stay free if all of that went live?

The colours of the lights contrasted harshly with the writing in his eye and Aiden wished he'd lowered the transparency of the Lens. Nothing he could do about it now, though, so he narrowed his eyes instead and finally working up some faint burning in his muscles with the increasing speed of his thrusts, letting it chip away at his concerns over Blume, allowing his concentration to skitter until there was just a consuming friction left and the room filled with the lewd sound of slapping of flesh.

He fucked her steadily, fingers wrapped around the bones of her hips, then reaching down, digging into the yielding flesh at the junction of her thighs, forcing her to cant up against him. She made a wailing sound, unrestrained enough it might even be real. She let herself fall forward, clawing the sheets. He certainly had paid enough for a decent performance.

For just a moment, his mind went blank. Part of him wanted to make it last, draw out the superficial peacefulness of it, when he didn't have to think, when he didn't have to be aware of the edge he walked. He only gave a last, hard thrust, then pulled back and let the prostitute drop from his hands.

A tremor went through her entire body, a twiching along the muscles of her thighs, in what might be a badly faked orgasm or just a cramp in her thigh. She picked herself up and sat back on her knees, turning around to face him.

By then, Aiden had already picked up a handful of tissues from a box and wiped himself down, slipped off the used condom and tossed everything into a nearby dustbin.

The prostitute watched him silently, sultry expression slowly fading into vague confusion as he pulled his trousers up and stalked to where she'd tossed his coat.

"What are you…?" she began, gaze flickering uncertainly between him and where he'd left the money before.

Aiden opened the door, glanced over his shoulder and shrugged slightly. "Keep the change," he said.

The smell of the brothel clung to him as he walked out into the street, mixed with the stench of damp trash. Aiden stopped just outside, sucked in a deep breath. At least the air was cooler here, less suffocating than inside and the ordinary white of the street-lamps was soothing in its simplicity.

His phone buzzed. _T-Bone calling,_ the Lens announced. It got him walking, stepping down to the sidewalk, burying his hands in his pockets and head cast down for the added shadow of the cap.

He picked up the call.

_"'Dave' left twenty minutes ago. What are you doing?"_ T-Bone asked. _"Something gone wrong? You need help in there?"_

"Not yet," Aiden muttered. "I got the data, I was just leaving. I'll be with you in a minute."

He followed the street, mindful of where ctOS coverage kicked back in. He could switch the Lens to display the camera angles, allow him to know when he was in their sight, but he didn't. Around here, it wasn't necessary.

A short walk brought him to a nearly abandoned parking lot on the back of a fenced-in derelict site.

Leaning on the hood of his car, T-Bone waited with his arms crossed over his chest, watched as Aiden approached before he struck out a thumb at the other car he'd parked beside.

"The 770S is yours?" he asked.

"In a manner of speaking."

"You got past the biometric lock?"

"Yeah, took a while, but I like fast cars. The manufacturer has an override signal that can be imitated using a phone."

T-Bone chuckled and shook his head slightly. "You mind sending me what you've got?"

"You got it," Aiden said. He pulled the drive he'd got off 'Dave' from his pocket and held it out to T-Bone. "And that, too."

T-Bone took the drive and climbed in the passenger seat of his own car, plugged the drive in and started copying the files.

"Takes ten minutes to copy?" he asked, clearly surprised. "Just how much is there?"

"Like I said," Aiden replied, leaning against his car. "It's everything they've got. But there's nothing more recent than two months ago. Something happened at Blume that completely knocked DedSec out of their system. It's not been rolled out, yet, but it's safe to expect some major changes soon."

T-Bone glanced up at him, then back down at the tablet he was using to survey the data as it copied.

"My god," he murmured. "Have you seen the hardware schematics? Blume's struck a deal with most of Sillicon Valley to roll out an entirely new product line."

"Briefly, I haven't looked at everything."

"Well," T-Bone tapped the side of the tablet. "We're in for a _bad_ stretch. Blume's gearing up to replace _everything_. Software, hardware, you name it."

"And they got the legislation to back it up, too," Aiden added. "It's a neat dragnet they're weaving. Question is, how tight is it?"

"Can't tell," T-Bone said, still fixed on the screen. "I'll take it to Frewer, let him take a look at it, too. Don't expect good news."

"I never do."

T-Bone leaned his head back into the headrest, arching his brows. "You look like you've seen better days."

"Been up for twenty hours straight," Aiden shrugged, pulled himself back to his feet, stepped around his car and finally got in. "I'm heading home. I need a shower."

They waited in silence until the transfer was complete. T-Bone was browsing the data while it happened, sometimes he made a comment or cursed, depending on what he'd spotted, but Aiden was paying attention with half an ear only. Once he got a few hours of sleep in, he'd be more useful anyway.

"Aiden?"

He glanced up.

"Catch," T-Bone said and tossed the drive through the open windows. Aiden snatched it out of the air on reflex, pocketed it and pulled himself straight in his seat, real leather creaked under his movement. The car still smelled new. He'd plugged it from the street just this evening, but he wasn't even sure the original owner had driven it much further than the parking lot of his apartment complex. Cracking the 770S' safety measures allowed him access to one of the fastest and most durable cars on the market. He didn't think it was going to last long, for now, though, the car was an edge he would exploit to its fullest.

"Get some shuteye," T-Bone advised. "I'll know more when you're back among the living."

Aiden only nodded and said nothing more. He started the car, the 770S' engine hummed quietly to itself and the car slid smoothly into motion, deceptively gentle, considering just how fast and powerful it would be with only slightly more pressure on the gas.

A few blocks from his home, Aiden's car was reported stolen and he had to ditch it in an alleyway.

* * *

Aiden walked into his apartment and let the coat slip from his shoulders to the floor. He dropped his phone and gun on the couch table and swiped the Lens out with his fingers.

He rubbed his sore eye with the back of a hand. You shouldn't keep the Lens in for more than six hours, which was why he switched between both eyes, expanding the time he could use it. Of course, setting up the meet and staking out the brothel had crashed right past that limit and he hadn't been able to take a break.

He took a deep breath, forced his eyes back open and picked up the drive again. He walked over to his desk, booted up his rig and plugged the drive in. He'd already prepared a quarantined partition for it, make sure nothing infiltrated his system and do any damage.

The chair looked inviting, but he pushed himself back from the desk and stood still for a moment, letting his mind wander. The wide half-circle of the windows around him gave him a breathtaking panorama of Chicago's glittering lights, spread out before and below him, captivating him.

He took another breath, squared his shoulders against some imagined leaden weight pulling him down. He dragged the bulletproof shirt over his head, straining against the heavier material before he got it loose. He tossed it over the back of the couch, went past the bathroom to switch on the light, but headed into the kitchen.

He didn't expect good news from T-Bone. Even the bits he'd already seen made the shape of the future abundantly clear. They might stand a chance if T-Bone found new exploits in Praeterea, but even then, what they had was an early version. DedSec certainly didn't think they could crack it. Even if T-Bone was better than any of them and so was Frewer — at least on a good day. Aiden liked to think he could give them a run for their money, too. But most likely, they were _all_ in over their heads.

He picked a pizza carton from the fridge, leaned a hip against the counter as he took a few bites from the last remaining slice. Through the open door, the saw the screens of his rig. Feeds from the buildings' in-house surveillance and the ctOS cameras outside, though he was too far away to make out more than faint movement. Nothing suspicious, as far as he could tell, but image recognition had progressed in leaps and bounds the past few years. His system would be able to pick up an aggregation of SWAT teams just outside well in advance, giving him more than enough time to prepare — or just get the hell out, whichever option looked more viable.

His phone buzzed and he was tired enough to give an annoyed roll of his eyes. He stalked to the phone, swiped it up and glanced at the display, carried it back to the kitchen. T-Bone… that was quick, even for bad news.

With all his gadgets strewn around his living room, he squeezed the phone between his head and shoulder, as he wandered back into the kitchen. He needed his free hand to open the fridge and pick up a bottlecan.

"Hey, just got home," he said. "What's…?"

_"Don't load the data!"_ T-Bone shouted. _"It's infected and will phone home!"_

Aiden stood up immediately, turned on his heels and stared across the room at his screens. No doubt, T-Bone had safety measure much like his own, better ones at that, if it had surprised _him,_ Aiden's system was almost certainly compromised, too. No two ways about it.

"Too late," he said and couldn't work up much emotion. He took one step forward, but stopped when movement caught his eye from beyond the window.

He had time to frown, a moment of confusion before recognition kicked in. Sleek and black, rendered almost invisible against the backdrop of the cityscape, a large drone hovered just outside, revealing its position only if it moved or you knew exactly what you were looking for. Perhaps there were others, beside or behind it, all around the building, were there was no surveillance.

Aiden's screens lit up in bright white, all of them at once, and then displayed a line of simple black writing spread out across the screens and large enough to read even from where he stood.

_[I got you now.]_

It was timed, of course, to give him enough time to realise what had happened — and what was going to happen. Just long enough for him to know he could no longer escape, not hide or fight back.

Under the surge of adrenaline in his veins, the events around him slowed into futile, devastating detail. The drone opened fire from two rotary canons mounted to its belly. The sustained fire shattered the windows and send a storm of vicious shards into the room. It minced his furniture, shattered expensive wooden panelling with the same ease it ripped apart concrete walls only for bullets to ricochet on steel beams. It tore through his computers to dancing sparks, the damage great enough to cause some kind of power surge that made the lights flicker even before they were shot down, plunging the entire place into semi-darkness, lit only by muzzle fire and the distant lights of the city outside.

Aiden had no time to react other than just throw himself to the ground and then slide backward into the kitchen, into the treacherous promise of cover, though there was nothing here that'd protect him from the piercing force currently levelled against him.

If that was what it took to take him down… he could do without the appreciation.

His fridge dropped on his back, surprisingly heavy, considering it contained little else than two six-packs and maybe a jar of mayonnaise. He started to struggle, trying to pull himself free, but then stopped. Even an inch of additional padding between him and being torn to shreds was a good idea, he decided.

How long could the drone sustain fire? It had seemed like a fairly small machine, but he hadn't had time to make out many details. It would have to run out of ammo eventually and it wasn't doing enough damage to the skyscraper at large, so at least he wasn't going to be buried at the bottom of a very big pile…

He'd ended up with his head resting on the floor and it felt welcoming and solid, like he could just stay here until the pandemonium was over, but just because they had stopped shooting didn't mean anything was done at all. Whoever was attacking, whoever had set this up, had more resources than just one UCAV.

Who, though? DedSec? But 'Dave' hadn't been lying, his fearhad been genuine and all the data couldn't have been faked, tampered with perhaps, but not made up from scratch just to lure him in. Blume had the money and ruthlessness to enact this sort of thing, perhaps DedSec's data had already been contaminated, a trap not meant for him specifically, but anyone who'd plug it in, stupidly thinking their security measure could stand up to it.

The message, on the other hand, it had seemed rather personal.

The last smattering of gunfire died away abruptly, but it took a while until it registered through the ringing in his ears and the noise of his own heartbeat. He knew he was breathing too fast, especially in the dust the drone had kicked up, choking himself even as he tried to steady himself.

As he blinked in the dust and darkness, something wet ran down the side of his face. He wiped at it with one hand, traced it back to his skull until his fingers found a cut just above his ear.

He got a gulp of dusty air into his lungs and he coughed violently, heaving himself up under the force of it, pushed his shoulders against the weight of the fridge until it slipped free from him and he could sit up, his back pressed into something solid, the wall maybe but he wasn't sure.

From far away, he heard the howl of the building's fire alarm going off.

He wiped at his eyes, probably smearing more blood, but his vision cleared slowly. Debris blocked the kitchen door, but he could see through the gaps into the living room, saw jagged edges of his destroyed furniture, bits of the ceiling as it had come down, a toppled wall on the back of the room where his bedroom used to be.

As he watched, dark shapes appeared outside, abseiling from a helicopter hovering somewhere out of sight. Looked like some kind of black ops team, armed to the teeth and dressed in black body armour. He watched as they spread out, guns ready, methodically searching the debris.

Aiden forced down the cough until it was only a scratching sound, uncomfortably lodged in his throat. He needed to _move,_ now, otherwise he could just put his head back to the floor and wait for death.

Surprisingly, it took a split second longer than it should, just to make that decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References**
> 
> A prototype for _spray-on condoms_ actually exists, but the concept isn't really being developed.
> 
> _Praeterea:_ lat. hereafter
> 
> _Bulletproof shirt:_ obviously, some advance was made in regards to body armour.
> 
> Think of the 770S as a the succeeding model of the 550S in the game.
> 
> Obvious pun on Aiden's name here. (While we are at the topic of his name, do you have any ideas what sorts of linguistic acrobatics I keep performing so I avoid calling his gaze 'piercing' and still get the idea across?)
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised on 11/May/2017**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Really fucking long chapter. Action-film level of realism.

The apartment moaned under the damage, broken concrete crumbling and the hissing of the wind through the destroyed windows picked up clouds of choking dust.

It couldn't have been more than a minute since the firing had stopped and the mercenaries dropped into the apartment. It felt longer.

Aiden got to his feet carefully, mindful of the darkness. He could not know what else would break and crash at any moment, perhaps burying him for good before he even had a chance. He wondered if that had been the point. If he'd been meant to survive just long enough to know he couldn't beat it.

He slipped on something, a broken piece of his kitchen counter perhaps, fell hard when he found nothing to hold on to. The fall tore a surprised grunt from him, picked up his element of surprise and hurled it out of reach.

As one, the mercenaries turned to him, the white lights they had at the ready with their guns burned in his eyes.

He stepped free of the ruined kitchen and raised his arms, surprised at how hard he was breathing after only the short exertion. He couldn't see the enemy against the glare, could make out only faint shadows around the apartment and he barely recognised the place.

"My god," one of mercenaries muttered. "How is he still alive?"

Aiden couldn't see which one it was. _Bad luck,_ he thought wryly

He opened his mouth, but at first his throat refused to work, producing only an incoherent croak. He coughed, felt like he’d swallowed sandpaper and when he finally managed to force words out, they came out in a harsh whisper.

He said, "I surrender."

He could tell his enemy had not expected it. It was in their stance, what little he could see of them. It was in the way they went still for just a moment and hesitated despite the obvious training they'd had.

They weren't police, as much was obvious, something paramilitary perhaps. Blume Corporate Police was the obvious guess, they had the money and the training for just this sort of operation, and the political backing to get away with an all out assault in the middle of Mad Mile. Perhaps they were backed up by mercenaries flown in from somewhere where his dubious truce with the fixers didn't apply. Frewer's MIBs…

Whoever they were, Aiden had only a moment. He doubted they were going to just tie him up and deliver him bundled up to whoever was pulling their strings. Most of his enemies wanted him dead.

Glass crunched under his feet as he took another step forward, getting clear of some of the larger pile of debris and gaining some freedom of movement.

"Look, I give up," Aiden said, his voice still too rough, it'd make this a hard sell. "Just don't shoot, okay?"

Another step and by now he would be too close and their instincts and training would warn them. He saw the shiver in the light as they tensed and he forced himself to relax his shoulders, let his hands drop just a little. Maybe it looked like he lacked the strength to keep them up and he wasn't entirely sure it was all playacting, either.

"Whatever you want," Aiden said. "You got it."

It didn't much matter what he said, as long as he kept talking they were less likely to open fire. He only needed a moment, an indrawn breath and whatever speed and reflexes he could still muster, because he had no time to think. Fake a stumble and get within reach. A lung, too quick to prevent and he struck the barrel of a the gun aside, twisted his wrist to wrap his fingers around it. He snapped his other hand up, gripped the butt of the assault rifle and jarred it up, out of the soldier's hand and around. Finger on the trigger before the movement was even finished, so the bullets ripped up over the soldier's groin and stomach, knocking him back with their impact.

Aiden whirled around, leaning against the recoil to compensate for the terrible angle and his bad grip on the upside down rifle, enough to make the others dodge back, even if he wasn’t doing much real damage.

He didn't have much time after that. Aiden took the gun and drew back into the shadow, pushed through and ran for the door, kicked in what was left of it and burst through into the hallway outside his apartment in the time it took for his attackers to gather themselves.

The rotary canon had torn right through the hallway and destroyed the apartment across his own, but up and down the hallway, emergency lights had come on and the fire alarm was making itself heard from still functioning speakers.

Not enough time had passed for there to be a panic, yet. Aiden spotted a few wide-eyed people down the hall, standing dumbstruck in the shifty darkness. He didn't want to make them a target, so he turned the other way and ran down the hall, jumping over bits and pieces of wall, littering the hallway.

He skittered around the corner, just in time to avoid a hail of bullets impacting the wall across from him. They were too close behind him to outrun.

"Shit," he hissed, throw himself around and put his shoulder into the corner, leaned out of cover and fired down the hallway to at least stall them. He drew back, a minor pause in the fire, then another burst, to keep them off balance. Enough so they waited another moment before they advanced, in case he fired again.

In truth, Aiden pushed himself to his feet almost immediately and raced down the hallway, following the emergency lights to the stairwell. The metal door screeched from disuse, probably gave him away, too, even in the general noise slowly mounting everywhere, between alarms and crumbling concrete.

Aiden took three steps at a time, going up, because down was too obvious. The thing any fleeing target would do. On the floor above, he gave the door a kick so it swung back and forth, but he kept running up two more floors.

He heard the mercenaries below him on the stairwell, shouting short clipped orders between each other, splitting up to cover all directions.

People were streaming from their apartments up here, heading for the fire exits, confused but otherwise mostly calm. They stopped on their tracks when Aiden burst through the door into the hall and stood for a moment breathing, scanning his surrounding. The lights were still working on this floor. Some of the people had phones on their ears, or at least in front of them. He snatched one up, kept going before the young man he'd taken it from had a chance to be stupid enough to object.

He slowed down to a fast walk, giving him a chance to catch his breath, but bringing as many corners between himself and his pursuers as he could.

"I need a pickup on top of Millennium Point," he said.

He kept hurrying along the hallway, pressing against and with the stream of people, who gave him a wide berth once they realised he was carrying a gun and looked like an action film reject.

_"Can be arranged,"_ Jordi answered. _"When?"_

"Fifteen minutes ago."

_"Aren't we a little melodramatic here?"_ Jordi inquired bemusedly. _"And I hate to disappoint, but time-travel is not a service I currently offer."_

"I'm not melodramatic," Aiden snapped. "I'm the target of some kind of black op. They blew out my apartment."

_"Wait, you've got a place in Millennium Point? Not bad, Pearce, not bad. I'd never have…"_

"Jordi!"

Aiden pushed through into another stairwell, climbed another story and returned to the hallway. His only chance was to shake his pursuers and get to the roof, bunker down somewhere and hope Jordi didn't take too long.

_"Hey, just saying. Alright,"_ Jordi said. _"I'm on…"_

The line went dead and Aiden slowed down just a little, took the phone down to check it. The screen had gone white and as he watched, black writing appeared.

_[I see you.]_

"What the…?" Aiden snapped his gaze up, scanned the ceiling and spotted the security camera mounted above. As if stung, Aiden drew back and into the open doorway for an apartment. The television was still running from when the people who lived here had abandoned it.

All the hallways had surveillance. He _knew_ that, he'd tapped into it, after all. But even so, even if he hadn't forgotten it, what would he have done about it? Just shooting out the cameras wouldn't help and he'd only waste valuable ammo.

_[I know where you are.]_

Cursing to himself, Aiden picked the phone apart swiftly, hull and battery, tossed them all away, but he didn't even get a chance to think about what he would do next.

The telltale shadow of the drone lowered itself outside the windows and Aiden immediately withdrew back into the hallway, ran down even as the firing started behind him, following him as he ran under the camera's eye.

He slipped around a corner and the firing stopped, but no doubt another squad of mercenaries was close behind. Aiden didn't stop, felt the camera as it tracked him through the door and into the stairwell. Men were coming up from below and at least it saved him the trouble of having to reconsider his strategy. Whoever was hunting him, he'd clearly tapped into the phone, he'd know Jordi was coming and that Aiden was trying for the roof.

Probably made no difference, anyway. He didn't _have_ a choice, all he could do was keep going.

He tried not to think about the other people who had been in that hallway only a moment before, those without the warning he'd had.

He was about to run past the next floor, but stopped abruptly and turned back. A small sign said _Electrical Room._

By now, news of the carnage on the floors below seemed to have spread through the building and the people he passed were agitated, some panicking. They were crowding around the elevators out of habit, others were making for the stairs. He pushed through them until he reached the metal door at the end of the hallway. It was locked, with a worn-looking key pad at the side.

Aiden glanced down the hall, felt the camera watching him, but for the moment there was no one else.

He could try shooting in the lock, but he'd risk jamming it. He put the gun in one hand, kept glancing to the side, but focused on the key pad. It was old, keys worn out with use and time.

"Shit," Aiden said, but started tapping the first possible code combination. A small red light flared up to deny him.

Another and another, still red. Who even picked a number not starting with one? Of all the people to remember password safety tips, it had to be this one.

He couldn't see them, but he thought he could sense the pursuers closing in and he was beginning to think he'd made a mistake. It was a dead-end, he'd effectively cornered himself. He should've kept running while he still could instead of trying to play it clever, but twenty-four had seemed like a workable number just a moment before.

3169, 3196, 3619…

A tiny movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye, but when he looked up, there was nothing. He stared down the hallway, waiting for the movement.

The camera shivered to the side a little and Aiden flattened his back against the wall by the door, just in time for the first bullet to shoot past him. The first burst missed and he dropped down to one knee, brought his rifle up and send a volley into the wall at the end of the corridor, making sure he pulled up and took out the camera, then yanked down just in time to hit someone in the face. He heard yelling as they rearranged themselves.

He shifted forward and pulled up. The gun was too heavy to fire with one hand and hope for anything like accuracy, but all he needed was to keep them pinned down around that corner.

3691

The gun clicked emptily and his arm and shoulder ached from the force. It'd be a second until they realised he was out. Enough for a last try.

3916.

The lock clicked open and Aiden threw himself through the door, pushed it closed behind him, threw himself around, engaged the lock from the inside. Barely another moment passed before he heard the first bang on the door, but the metal held for now.

The electrical room wasn't very large, it contained the distribution panels for the upper floors, lined up against the walls on either side.

By the door was a desk and a chair, a locker cabinet. A handful of tools were strewn around in something of a mess. Aiden picked up a screwdriver as he went, pushed it into the back-pocket of his jeans and went to the fuse box. Unlike the rest of the room, this one seemed to have been replaced recently. It had a touchscreen monitor mounted on it, some parts flashing in warning red.

Something banged on the door again, it sounded like the butt of a rifle. "Hey you!" someone shouted. "We accept your surrender!"

Under his breath, Aiden muttered, "Offer expired."

If the janitor or whoever had been here before him had remembered to lock the screen, it would be over. Aiden had no tools available to him, no way to force access to the power grid. But it wasn't, the screen responded eagerly to his touch. It connected to the distributer boxes on the other floors and to the generator in the basement.

It was a fiddling piece of work. The software that ran the power distribution in the building could do everything he wanted it to, but it was never meant to do it in this way. He needed to overload the grid, make sure no one could easily fix it. At the same time, he wanted the generator to kick in and power the emergency lights. His night vision was good, but total darkness wasn't what he wanted. Just an edge. He hadn't spotted night-vision goggles on any of the mercenaries, they'd be flying blind.

The programme was Blume software, he had never seen this type of iteration, but he was more than familiar with Blume's work, everything ran on the same core. He found the command console and set about rewriting some of the standards.

He set a small time delay, then went back to the door. There was no key pad on the inside, this direction, the door opened at a push. He paused, went through everything in his mind to make sure he hadn't made any obvious mistakes in his haste.

Even so, his chances weren't looking stellar. He had an empty gun and a screwdriver, a momentary element of surprise against what looked like a small army of extremely well-equipped mercenaries.

Back by the door, he closed his eyes as he counted the seconds off in his head, hand resting on the handle until the time was right. He pressed down, the lock disengaged while behind him, the fuse box overloaded with cackling, blue sparking electricity before a hard snap seemed to go through the entire skyscraper and it was plunged in darkness.

It'd be a moment before the generator kicked in and barely as much for trained mercenaries to be disoriented even in that situation.

Aiden thrust the door open with all the force he could muster and earned himself a painful grunt from whoever had been right outside the door. He used the rifle as a club, beat its heavy butt into someone's stomach, jabbed to the other side with the gun until there was the resistance of flesh and someone trying to grip the gun from the front and someone else's hand closing around his shoulder, then immediately going for his arm and trying to trip him.

Aiden leaned into the grip, too close for the fumbling step to take his balance. He dropped the gun and with the freed hand, he pulled the screwdriver out, twisted it like a knife and stabbed it hard back, into where the neck had to be. The screwdriver slipped on the collar, but the man yanked away, enough that Aiden got his arm free, twisted around and reached for him, found his throat by touch alone and this time got the screwdriver through his neck.

The man gargled, more in surprise than actual pain. Aiden ripped the screwdriver out again. Sensed some open space on his left and ducked into it just as the emergency lights came on and bathed the hallway in a dull orange gloom, barely enough to make out bulky shadows.

Someone came at him, a combat knife ready, catching the light and betraying itself. Aiden caught the man's wrist, twisted, but earned himself a slice along his arm before he got a good hold. He punched the man in the jaw, twice in quick succession, just where the protective visor ended.

His moment was gone by then, of course. He'd downed two, maybe three, from what seemed to be eight men. Time for a retreat. He gave someone's — or his — dropped rifle a kick and it slithered over the ground along the hallway, where he picked it up running. Weight alone told him it wasn't his, this one still had some ammo in it.

He didn't waste it on the group by the electrical room. He made the corner, heard them behind, trying to catch up, but their numbers put them at a slight disadvantage, enough to take him around yet another corner and through the door, back into the stairwell.

The blackout had tipped the skyscraper finally into chaos. After nearly two decades under terror threat, people didn't handle emergencies too well, especially when armed men were involved. People were about everywhere, some already in hysterics or clearly too confused to look for an exit. In the semi-darkness, they couldn't make him out clearly enough and he didn't linger to give them a chance.

Thick smoke crawled along the ground, it smelled of burning plastic. The sprinklers were on the same network as the emergency lights, but he wasn't sure if he'd rerouted them or not.

Time to think. He didn't want it, but just running up flights of stairs gave him exactly that. He thought of the people in the hallway below him, when the drone had shot in the windows in the second apartment. He hadn't seen it, but he knew they'd been gunned down when the bullets tore through the walls, caught in the crossfire without any fault of their own. The blackout and the explosion he'd caused would take their share of victims, too.

He cursed to himself, but didn't slow down. He couldn't save them now, could he? Maybe he'd never been able to save anyone at all.

He slowed down a little when he reached the 50th floor, he seemed to have got rid of his pursuers for now. He took stock of his state. A still bleeding gash at the side of his right arm, but while it was vaguely painful and made his grip on the stolen combat knife somewhat slippery, it hadn't actually done any damage that'd hinder him. The cut on his head from the original attack had stopped bleeding, caked several lines of dried blood down the side of his face. He'd tried rubbing them away, but he wasn't sure it had done much good. He was starting to feel the numerous points of pain from the bruises on his back and shoulders and there was an alarming burning deep in his limbs.

It was hard to judge how much time had passed, a handful of minutes perhaps, but it felt longer. Smoke lingered around the ground, but he couldn't make out its source.

"Hey," someone said and Aiden snapped his head around. He hadn't heard the movement of the door below him, nothing to tip him off at all. Or perhaps he'd got careless and paid no attention.

He brought the gun up before he had time to register anything. A young man stood on the landing, just past the door. He was aiming a shotgun at him, but he was dressed only in jeans and T-shirt, not combat gear.

"You're him! Fuck!" he announced. He turned his head and yelled back, "Hey! Owen! I got him!"

Another man came through the door, he was holding a handgun in one hand and a cellphone in the other. He glanced down at it, then up at Aiden.

"Shit, man, it's really him!”

Aiden frowned. "What's going on?"

Both young men shuffled back half an inch when he spoke, both of them training their weapons on him. Aiden lowered his own gun, waited until he saw them relax just a little before he took one step down.

"Hey, stay right there!" the one with the shotgun snapped. He grinned. "Man, I can't believe it! You really live in here!”

"What do you want?" Aiden asked. He didn't feel very threatened. The two of them, although armed, wouldn't be much of a problem. He could jump them right from where he stood and they didn't look like they had the reflexes to stop him.

The other one, the one called Owen, held out his phone and turned it around, Aiden spotted a picture of himself on the display.

"Weird," the young man explained, but shrugged, uncaring. "We got a text, like a couple of minutes ago. Right after the power went out. I think everyone got them? It says whoever takes you down gets… wait for it… _10 million dollars."_ He gave a dirty grin to go with the number. "Dead only five," he added as if that was just a terrible ripoff.

"You think you'llget to collect on that?" Aiden asked in honest disbelief.

Both young men grinned. Owen said, "Worth a shot, if you know what I mean. Nothing personal. I like watching the police chase you. They're making such an ass of themselves every time!"

His friend hesitated, then said, "So… are you going to come quietly?"

Aiden still frowned, but it wasn't a very complicated concept. Some kind of would-be mastermind was behind all of this, someone with access not only to money and mercenaries, but also ctOS. With the blackout, the cameras had been rendered useless and the squats of armed men scouring the building had been casting about in the dark for a while now, Aiden didn't have as much trouble avoiding them. Pitting the entire building against him was a clever idea, callous of course, but not without its merits.

Aiden tilted his head, pretended to think about it, "Sure."

He put his gun down slowly, perhaps making a little more show of it than necessary. He went down the stairs in measured movements until he was only two steps away from the landing and the two young men, both of them fidgeted a little the closer he came, suddenly not quite as sure of their advantage anymore as they had been. Making them wait any longer would just be cruel.

Aiden made short work of them, neither of them with reflexes good enough to put up much of a fight. Aiden slapped the shotgun aside, stepped in close and head-butted him. The young man collapsed with a thin whine, dropping the shotgun as he crumpled. Owen had time to flinch back, eyes going wide in shock, unable to do much more than flail his arm in a useless attempt to bring his gun up before Aiden took it from him.

Still in shock, Owen raised his hands, "I'm sorry! We meant… we thought… shit!" he stuttered, faltered and his eyes went even wider. "Don't kill us!" He glanced at his downed friend, who'd curled up on his side, clutching his face with both hand, blood welling from between his finger.

"Give me the phone," Aiden said and Owen blinked slowly several times, then held it out.

Aiden pocketed the phone. He picked up the shotgun and took out the slugs before he dropped the gun. No doubt they had more ammo somewhere, but it was the symbolism of the thing and he couldn't take the shotgun with him, the handgun would be more useful.

Aiden climbed back up the steps, picked up the rifle and glanced back over his shoulder at the two young men. Owen was still holding his hands up and didn't seem to have moved at all. His friend whimpered quietly. Neither of them seemed willing to follow him, so Aiden let them be.

He hurried up the stairs and out into the hallway one floor above, he didn't meet any more people. Several apartment doors were open and he edged inside carefully, making sure no one had hidden away in there. Only when he'd done a quick round through the place did he allow himself to relax. He went to the kitchen, badly lit in the gloom from the lights outside. Found the fridge and a bottle of water, he drank deeply.

He wasn't safe here, he couldn't stay. He needed to get to the roof and maybe this pause was the worst decision he'd ever made, but he sat down on the kitchen table anyway, pulled the phone out and pulled up the text the two young men had spoken of. True enough, someone was offering a ridiculous amount of money for his corpse, or his incapacitated body or even any tips or hints on where he was. If everyone in the building had received the same message, he could be sure more than just those two idiots were on the hunt, looking for him and those would be the dangerous types. Not because of skill, but because all reasonable people would be trying to get out, fictional fortunes or not.

Sender ID was blocked, as expected, and he lacked the tools to crack it. What was comparatively easy to do was find some unprotected routers in the neighbourhood and use them to bounce his own signal around. No doubt someone was monitoring cellphone activity, but right now, he'd have to dig through a lot of white noise to find him, he probably had a few minutes.

He called T-Bone, hoped the man had some working security of his own, in case the call was tracked faster than he thought. No need to pull T-Bone down with him.

"Aiden," he said when T-Bone picked up.

_"What do you need?"_ T-Bone asked without any preamble.

"There's a message saved on this phone, I need you to track the sender for me."

_"Give me a sec…"_ T-Bone said. _"Yeah, I'm seeing it. 10 million bucks? That's a lot of dough."_

"Tell me about it, lets make sure no one goes bankrupt paying it," Aiden said. He took another gulp of water and forced himself back to his feet. "I'll leave the phone here, don't wanna be tracked, be careful yourself. I'll get back to you if I can."

_"You sure that's all the help you need?"_

Aiden thought about it, "No, but it's all I’ll get. What's up out there?"

_"Complete state of emergency,"_ T-Bone snorted. _"CPD has blocked off half of Mad Mile around Millennium Point, they're even out on the water. The entire area is being evacuated. Firefighters have moved in on the lower floors, getting people out. WKZ is on the fence over whether they want to report a terror attack or a tragic accident, it's obvious they have no idea. Cops are everywhere, so's Corporate Police, but there ain't anything official from Blume yet."_ He paused. _"What_ is _going on?"_

"I have an idea, but… I don't know," Aiden sighed. He looked around the apartment, but couldn't find a second phone he could use and he had no time to search for one. He returned to the kitchen, picked up the water again, but didn't get to drink.

He heard the movement out in the hallway, the heavy tread of armoured mercenaries and quiet orders being called back and forth as they swarmed out in the hallway.

"T-Bone, I have to keep moving," Aiden said. "Just find me that sender."

He took the phone down, pulled out the trash, dropped it behind and closed the cabinet again. Whoever came following the phone was welcome to waste time looking for it.

He drew back, further into the shadows and slipped to the door, listened attentively for the mercenaries. It sounded like they were going door to door, if he moved fast, he could get out just ahead of them, but peeking outside put that thought to rest quickly. They were already too close, working in teams of two, one always remained in the hallway while his comrade searched the apartment.

Slowly, he slipped down until he could lean the assault rifle against the wall a little away, so he wouldn't kick it out of sight if there was a scuffle, pulled out the combat knife instead. The only silent weapon he had, for whatever that was going to be worth. He leaned back into the wall, pulled the door inward to cover him.

He heard some argument break out somewhere down the hall, some tenant having barricaded himself in his home instead of running away like most others. Several other voices joined in, then were bellowed down by one. There was no more complaint after that, but at least the mercenaries didn't seem to have killed someone.

Aiden waited, tensed when a shadow filled the doorway and a mercenary edged inside slowly, gun ready. Aiden had time to watch the advance for a moment, hidden in the shadow and out of the line of sight, but it couldn't last. Any moment, the mercenary would give the door a shove and know someone was behind it. Aiden didn't wait for that. He stepped out from behind the door, he tried to do it quietly, but the mercenary must have caught it anyway, swirled around to meet him, but Aiden jumped first, combat knife in his hand and he didn't hesitate. Aiden got a hold of the soldier's head and yanked it back, enough to expose a thin line of vulnerable skin just underneath the jaw and sliced the blade across, cutting as deep as he could. The mercenary made a wailing sound, the voice seemed to be female, but it was hard to tell under all the gear. The knife had cut deep, severed her vocal cords and she dropped her gun, both hands going for her throat in a useless attempt to stem the burst of blood.

Aiden ignored her. He pulled up straight, turned and pulled the handgun, held it out and fired three shots at the man just outside without taking much time to aim. Two bullets impacted the bulletproof shirt, but the third got him in the face and he slumped down.

"He's here!" someone else yelled from down the hall.

In mid-movement, Aiden collected the female mercenary's rifle and threw himself into the hallway, rolled to his feet and fired down the corridor while bullets whizzed over his head, but his vision had adapted well enough by now and he could pick out the paler faces in the gloom and once he'd downed several of them, the others were smart enough to withdraw into more defensive positions inside doorways and around corners. A bullet ripped past his arm, seared deep into his flesh and he felt the blood run down hot and wet. Aiden stood up and jump-started again, but he didn't get far.

An explosion shook the upper floors of the skyscraper, the vibrations crawled through the floor and the walls, hard enough that it knocked Aiden down again. He couldn't tell if the explosion had been above or below. Several smaller ones followed and dust started sailing down from the ceiling.

Regaining his feet, Aiden glanced over his shoulder as he ran. The mercenaries had already recovered from their surprise and opened fire. Aiden had to duck into another open doorway.

He breathed hard, the sound roaring in his ears, because he was pinned now. He looked around the apartment for some kind of cover, something more durable than a couch or a press board table. He saw nothing. He made his way through the apartment, through another door and into the a bedroom. No cover here, either, no connecting doors.

He heard the mercenaries outside and he doubted he could cheat his way out of it with another fake surrender. He brought the gun up, pressed his back against the wall by the door. There was still a chance, he just needed to shoot true every-time.

An odd clinking sound came from just outside. Aiden frowned, not sure why he even heard it over the telltale rustling of the mercenaries' combat gear and the metal on metal of their other equipment and weapons.

The sound came again, like stone, bursting apart followed by a low hiss and then the kitchen exploded in a white-light-blue fireball expanding outward. It blew out the windows and bulged out the wall to the bedroom Aiden was pressed against, knocking him to the floor as a wave of flames rolled through the door, igniting the carpet and the furniture.

The air was too hot to breathe and flames lashed over his back as he struggled to get away. He rolled over, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear his vision, but he saw nothing but black smoke and orange flames. With a hand over his mouth and nose, for whatever good that'd do him, Aiden brought his rifle up and fired at the windows until they splintered outward, enough to allow a gust of cold wind to sweep in. It fanned the flames to burn brighter, but it gave him a lungful of fresh air, too.

Outside, he heard screaming from the mercenaries. As Aiden pushed through into the living room he saw them scattered around the room like rag-dolls. Some lay motionless, burning silently, others were unfortunate enough to be still alive, rolling on their back screeching as they burned and trying to put out the fire as it ate through the bulletproof material. From a corner, someone was frantically calling for help over the radio, he stopped when he spotted Aiden, eyes bright in a soot-covered face.

Aiden ignored him, pushed through the burning debris and out into the hallway, catching blisters and singed hair when he came too close or just from the way the air itself was hot.

It didn’t look much better out in the hallway, worse if anything. The dull glow of the emergency lights joined the angry flicker of fire, shimmering through the smoke. Aiden slung his arm over his face and hurried down the corridor, trying not to breathe too deeply.

Other explosions kept shaking the building, stalked him along the corridor and made him pick up speed with every step. He had one more floor to go before he could reach the roof and he was fairly sure the first explosion had been above, so he couldn’t be sure he’d get through there.

He could only guess what had happened. His messing with the power grid must have caused a chain reaction in other systems of the network, something big enough to rupture a gas pipe. There should be emergency shutdowns for this sort of thing, but his overload had been a hurried job, no way to tell what damage he'd done to the system. Blume made their networks too tight, concentrated too many vital components in one place. It had always been the weakness in the way they worked and what made it so easy for him and other hackers to exploit them. Get into one subsystem, you have them all. Or in this case, blow up one and they all fail.

The smoke was thinner in the stairwell and Aiden passed by a handful of people heading down. Some of them looked badly burned and lost, following the herd because there was nothing else to do, others seemed more together, giving him a confused frown when he pushed through.

Someone said, “Are you sure you’re heading the right way?”

Aiden stopped and turned, found a middle-aged woman look back at him, determination written square across her face under a layer of sweat and dirt.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

She studied him, gaze passing over him, the gun slung over his shoulder and marks of fire and bullets on his bare skin. She frowned. “You’re the vigilante,” she said, voice perfectly neutral.

“I just live here.”

“It’s all your fault, isn’t it?”

She must have received the message promising the bounty and drawn her own conclusions about what was going on. She wasn’t far from the truth, either. Aiden didn’t feel like arguing.

“Listen, if you have your phone with you… can I borrow it?”

He didn’t expect her to smile, but it was an involuntary, tired expression and it vanished quickly. “Borrow?” she asked and shook her head. “Keep it.”

She reached into the inside of the jacket she wore and pulled out the phone, held it out to him with pointed fingers, so she wouldn’t touch him.

“Thank you,” he said. He tried to think of something else to say, but everything seemed shallow and meaningless. There was no point trying to placate her and she didn’t deserve to be manipulated, but she already turned away from him before he even reached a decision. Without giving him even one more look, she started the long climb down the stairs, coughing as the smoke grew thicker on the floor below.

Aiden pushed himself back into motion, felt the way his limbs had gone stiff during the short break and it took almost the entire way to the next floor before he felt some strength return. He pulled the woman’s phone up, dialled Jordi’s number.

“Where are you?”

_“Where are_ you?” Jordi asked back, impatiently, the droning of the helicopter nearly drowned him out. _“I’m circling Millennium Point and that’s quite the feat on its own, because CPD is all over that place. I had to borrow a police helicopter, but it’s only a question of time until someone figures out I’m too awesome to be one of them.”_

“I’m almost there, can you see how bad the 54th looks? There’ve been explosions.”

_“Looks pretty much on fire from here.”_

“There’s an armed drone, have you seen it?”

_“No and I don’t really want to, why would you say something like that?”_

“Would you rather it’d be a surprise?”

It would have been too easy if the stairwell went all the way up to the roof, but it stopped on 54 and a small sign said ‘Roof Access’ and an arrow pointing him through the door and into the hallway. He could already smell the fire.

_“No, not really,”_ Jordi said, having apparently considered the option. _“I haven’t seen it, but now you’ve made me nervous.”_

Aiden eyed the door. “I’m in the northwest stairwell, can you see if 54 looks better elsewhere? I’m not sure I can get through here.”

_“You_ are _in the good corner already,”_ Jordi announced. He was silent for a long moment, then said, _“I’m… sorry.”_

Aiden clenched his teeth. Even a small step closer to the door made the heat spike.

“Stick around,” Aiden told Jordi. “I’ll try it.”

He hung up before Jordi had a chance to say anything. He didn’t move right-away, considered calling T-Bone. But what use was the sender ID to him right now? It only mattered if he got through this and any second he wasted, it was just likely to get worse. He pushed the phone into his back-pocket, felt it scrape along the screwdriver he’d almost forgotten about.

He put the hand to the door and pushed it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know Pearce is under pressure when he voluntarily drinks _water_. Also, I really had trouble remembering real people can't carry dozens of guns and other equipment in their spandex space. Aiden doesn't even get a shirt in this one.
> 
> Aiden: probably the only guy with a smartphone who actually remembers phone numbers.
> 
> Millennium Point does not exist. _Harbor_ Point, however, does.
> 
> **Full disclosure on the age thing:** It's only a question of time until it really comes up (pun totally intended). First, Aiden won't go all weak and feeble on you, on me or on anyone. Drop the idea right now or be disappointed. Second, he was at his absolute worst in Quaint Old World (because sitting on your arse for ten years will do that to you). Third, there's a video of 70-year-old bodybuilder you want to google (because it's kickass).
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised on 11/May/2017**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, took longer than I expected to finish this. I couldn't get it to sound right and it was an overblown mess of lengthy but lacklustre description and stilted dialogue. Or maybe that's just the way I write…

The smoke was worse than the fire itself, it burned in his eyes and mouth, filled his lungs. It was everywhere in the hallways, made it difficult to orient himself. There was no straight way. Several apartments had been blown out, filling the hallways with burning debris, blocked his path and forced him to backtrack, break through ruined walls to find another way.

Aiden ditched the assault rifle for a dead man's fire extinguisher. It was already half empty, so he tried to conserve it for when he really needed it.

He found some cloth he could tie over his face, for whatever good it would do against the smoke and the heat. Flickering fire and the steady glow of the emergency lights mixed through the smoke, made it hard to tell one from the other until he was close enough to feel the heat.

He was aware of the blisters forming on his skin, but there was nothing he could do, so he ignored it, he'd deal with the pain when he had time.

At least, someone outside seemed to have managed to turn off the gas and there hadn't been any more explosions in a while. Small favours and all.

He was beginning to wonder if he wouldn't have stood a better chance against the private army waiting on the floors below. How many mercenaries had flooded into Millennium Point by now? If it was Blume, they'd have bought off CPD, and the firefighters had other problems to deal with. Next morning, it would be a PR nightmare, but it wouldn't matter to Blume if they had his corpse to show for it. If he went down, Blume could just spin the story any way they liked, blame him for everything. Of course, if he _didn't_ go down, it'd be much the same. Fingers would point his way and he could either take it lying down, or risk exposure by defending himself.

This was easier, private at least. It was closer, too. If he had options, he wouldn't trust in Jordi like this. Jordi worked for himself, made his own calls, but he'd spent _years_ making it a point turning down any job that'd pitch him directly against Aiden. If he didn't know any better, Aiden would've taken it for a show of friendship.

Without any options, Jordi was the only one he knew who'd be able to procure a chopper and come pick him up in the middle of a no-fly zone. And besides, Jordi was under much the same pressure he was. The rules were changing fast and Jordi knew it. The lone wolves were going down first everywhere.

Part of a wall had collapsed into the hallway, jammed with broken and still burning furniture, but Aiden couldn't find a way around it. He nearly depleted the fire extinguisher, burned his arms and hands dislodging jammed pieces of crumbling wall and broken wood. Something snapped under him and he slipped, something sharp cut into his shin. He cursed, pulled himself free and staggered the last few steps, then regained his balance and beat at the patch of jeans that had caught fire in the mess.

If he hadn't lost all orientation he shouldn't be much further from the roof, but when the metal door finally appeared ahead of him, he suppressed a feeling of relief, threatening to choke him worse than the smoke.

The roof access door was secured with a padlock, but he didn't feel like questioning the low-tech feature, he just used the fire extinguisher to bash away at it, until the padlock broke.

A narrow stairway went up the rest of the way, another door, though it at least wasn't locked, and Aiden finally stepped out onto the roof. The wind tore on him, cool on his singed skin and welcome in his sore lungs. He ripped the cloth from his face and leaned back against the wall by the door.

He had a moment to look around, saw the helicopters in the air and the diffuse glow of the fire from below. The howl of sirens was audibly from very away, barely reaching him before the wind dispersed it.

A shot tore into the wall by his head and he snapped up, focussed on the man who'd stepped out of the shadow on the roof with a raised gun. He had time to recognise Marcus Brenks' face, but wasted no more time. With an enraged cry, Aiden launched himself from the wall, threw the fire extinguisher at Marcus and closed in behind it.

Marcus twisted to the side to avoid the fire extinguisher, took it on his left arm, but had no time to bring his gun back up before Aiden tore him from his feet.

It was only a short struggle. The back of Marcus' head hit the ground hard, pinned there by Aiden's weight, who closed one hand around Marcus' right wrist and crushed his forearm over his throat. Marcus free arm came up, fumbled for purchase along Aiden's arm, tore into the gunshot wound there, but Aiden only hissed sharply at the pain and increased the pressure on Marcus' throat.

"Stop it," Aiden snarled when the young man kept struggling, making sounds like a wounded animal, trying to bring the gun back around.

Marcus grinned madly. "I can't."

He pulled up his legs, used the leverage to try to roll over. Aiden leaned back, released Marcus' throat. He jumped up, yanked the young man with him, punched him in the jaw enough to make Marcus pivot in an attempt to lessen the blow. Aiden didn't let go of the wrist, but reached for Marcus' upper arm with his other hand, closed his fingers tight and shifted his grip for the right angle. He wrenched down.

Marcus screamed and trembled when the joint of his shoulder was dislocated, but he didn't let go of the gun, only clenched it tighter with whatever control he retained.

Baring his teeth, Aiden pulled on the damaged arm again, dragged a pained scream from Marcus, but finally his fingers went lax and the gun clattered to the ground.

Aiden kicked it away, toward the distant edge of the building. It pulled Marcus' gaze with it and he looked like he was about to leap after it. Aiden stepped forward and kicked Marcus' feet away from under him.

The young man managed to stop his fall with his good arm, but it was an awkward move and he didn't come back up immediately.

"I knew it was you!" Aiden shouted. He took a few steps back, out of Marcus' easy reach. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Marcus watched him, eyes wide from pain and something else. "You were right," he said, plaintively, but with laughter at the back of his throat. "I… I can't. I have to try, you know. I have to kill you, but… I don't know anymore."

He let his head hang. "It was the only way," he said, looked up again. "You stepped up your game, you were so hard to find and when I couldn't find you, it got so _bad."_

"All of this?" Aiden demanded, threw an arm out in a sweeping gesture. "Everyone who died tonight? Everyone who lost someone, just because you couldn't _find_ me?"

Marcus nodded. A grin flickered across his features, he said, "Yes, but it… I have a plan, you have to believe me."

He leaned forward and struggled to his feet slowly. "Shit, that hurts," he breathed, eyes drooping briefly. "It kind of helps, actually. It distracts. Never had the guts to try pain."

He took a deep breath, standing, faced Aiden. "It had to be this way. I knew you'd survive. I knew you'd make it. I knew you'd go up. So I waited, but…" he stopped and shook his head. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"Can't say I care."

Marcus seemed to brace himself, his good shoulder and arm hanging almost as lax as the dislocated one. "I looked at Blume. I found Bellwether, but it wasn't… this," a small gesture with his left hand. "It was something else. So I looked further and I found it. It's a variant of Bellwether, they called it harbinger. It's only purpose is to hunt you. That's what it's supposed to do, find you, online and in the real world and it uses… us. But there's no us anymore, there's just me, because I took care of them, because harbinger won't let you quit on your own."

He looked around, gaze tracing the outline of the building, the dark of lake and blazing city skyline. "I couldn't jump," he said meekly. "Even if I wanted to, but it won't even let me want to."

"If you want me dead," Aiden said. "Then come after me, but leave everyone else out of it."

Marcus laughed, snapped his gaze back to Aiden and then tilted his head sideways in an odd, birdlike way. "What if I don't want to? I still hate you for killing Dad, but that's _mine_ and it's different. Harbinger… it won't really let me think straight. It's just calling for your blood all the time, but… maybe a part of me wants to just move on, but I can't really think like that. So I cheat it. I lied to myself. I pretended I'm planning. I set it up, I prepared. I sacrificed DedSec for this and Blume sent the army I asked them to. I brought a gun and I used it. But…"

Marcus took a slow step forward, eying Aiden, then another when Aiden didn't move away.

"I remember you, from when I was a kid, hanging around at Dad's house and… I'm still pissed with you and him, but Blume crossed the line. It's so much worse. You haven't seen the others, at least I had the right weapons to track you. That helps, you know. At least a little."

He took another step and he was within arm's reach. "If I could choose a side now, it wouldn't be Blume or harbinger. If I could pick an ally…it'd be you."

Slowly, Marcus took a small, final step, close enough to touch, but he didn't at first. Then, however, he dropped his head on Aiden's shoulder. His forehead was fever hot on Aiden's skin, his head heavy as he leaned down. For a long time, neither man moved.

"I think killing you wouldn't make it stop," Marcus said so quietly it was almost inaudible.

Aiden was holding himself perfectly still, strained and pulled taut, ready to snap.

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

A tiny shiver went through Marcus' body, travelled through them both. Marcus laughed mirthlessly, "What I want or what I _want?"_

"Take your pick," Aiden said, turned his head a little, watched Marcus slumped form.

"I want you dead," Marcus said. "And I want to die."

Aiden saw the tension run over Marcus back and neck in the instant before he moved, before the hiss of the switchblade and lightning stab for his exposed side. Aiden caught the blade, cut his fingers on it, but wrenched it from Marcus' grip.

Marcus didn't push the attack, only winced when he agitated the bruised joint in his right shoulder. He stood away from Aiden, a step off, far enough to make another attack a bad move, for either of them. His face stood out pale in the shifting darkness, eyes too bright, like an animal caught in the headlights.

"Don't tell me about a _cure_ ," Marcus said with a sneer. "I looked at it, I saw harbinger, I know what it is and how it works. It's…" he shook his head. "You can't reverse it. If I'd listened to you four years ago, maybe… but now? No."

Aiden paced a few steps, kept Marcus in his sight. His expression was like stone under a layer of soot and sweat and dried blood. The wind pulled on his singed hair.

"Why won't you kill me? What's so damn hard about it?" Marcus demanded. "I bet you killed dozens just getting here and I'm sure they weren't asking for it."

Aiden said nothing. For a moment, he let himself be distracted, followed the path of a helicopter with his gaze before he returned it to Marcus. He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair.

"I don't get it," Aiden said. "Don't you want to fight? You said I could be an ally."

Marcus chortled, then broke into a laugh, cut short when he moved too hard and pain shot through his arm. He reached out with his left hand, but didn't quite dare touch the joint, standing out oddly through his shirt and jacket.

"No, that's not what I said," Marcus shook his head. "I said, if I could _choose,_ but I can't. Okay? That's what I said. If you keep me alive… it's not going to stop. _I'm_ not going to stop. Tonight… tonight I bombed an entire skyscraper to get to you. If you let me go, what do you think I'll do next?"

"I never said I'd let you go. Frewer…"

"Tobias Frewer has been out of the loop for decades, whatever he worked on, I'm sure he won't even recognise it anymore. He can't help me. It's been done for a long time," Marcus said. He let his head drop back and closed his eyes. "What do you even want? What do I have to do?"

"Give me a chance to fight."

"You still wanna fight?" Marcus snapped his head down, fixed on Aiden. "It's _over._ That data I gave you? You realise that was the real deal. I couldn't risk giving you a fake, you could've spotted it, turned it down. I had to… but I couldn't take all that without Blume noticing, so I had to give them something in exchange."

"DedSec," Aiden finished, more taken aback by the conclusion than he was willing to show.

Marcus nodded, "Everyone who drank from the poison chalice. But that's not the point, the point is, I looked at that stuff, too. I see where it's headed. You probably know it, too, even if you only had a glimpse."

He paused for a moment, went still to let his meaning hang in the air between them, then continued, "You can't fight it. You can't save me like that, but you _can_ save me."

He took a deep breath and it was shaky, close to a sob. He took a small step forward again, but this time Aiden shifted back and to the side, keeping the same distance between them. Marcus stopped moving instantly.

"Come on, what's it gonna take?" Marcus demanded. "Will you force me to drag more innocents into it? Your sister, perhaps?"

"You wouldn't," Aiden said darkly.

"Why not?" Marcus asked, raised his eyebrows high in mockery. "It got the job done once. Or what about that gorgeous woman you keep tabs on? Maybe I'll go find her."

Aiden had fallen into pacing, a small half-circle around Marcus, one deliberate step at a time. He glanced at Marcus, stopped pacing for half a second, then resumed.

"Do you know where Jackson is right now?" Marcus inquired. "He just moved in with a couple of friends, they think about opening a restaurant together. He's been through so much… I'm not sure how he'll handle one more trauma."

Aiden reached the end of his half circle and his expression slowly hardened as he turned around on his heels.

"Too easy," he said and came to a halt right in front of Marcus, though still out of easy reach. "If you want to manipulate me, try harder."

Marcus smiled, held out his good hand. "We both know I'm not really trying, when I really try all hell breaks loose, but I had to say it. And it's not an empty threat."

Marcus was still for another long moment, seemed to hesitate, gaze digging into Aiden's intensely. He held on to it, by force of desperation rather than willpower.

He dropped to his knees, hard on the unyielding ground, spread one hand out in supplication, still looking back at Aiden.

Aiden made a low sound in his throat, a curse he was suppressing, a sound of surprise or anger, or all of it. Or perhaps just a cough for all the smoke he'd inhaled. The muscles along his jaw tensed, strained down his neck and shoulders, before he moved. He pulled the handgun from the waistband of his jeans, took a swift step forward and pushed into Marcus' forehead so hard, the young man jerked back until he shuddered into stillness. He reached up with his hand, wrapped it around the barrel of the gun as if he was afraid Aiden would take it away again.

"One last thing," Marcus said, speaking fast now, too eager. "Take my phone. You'll want to get rid of it. Don't. _Please_ , I had to… do it that way, but it'll help with… sticking it to Blume. I hacked harbinger and I changed it and… it'll not show now, because the systems aren't there yet, but sometimes I think I see the future and I know where it goes. Or maybe harbinger already did when it messed with my head. I don't know anymore. But you _have to_ keep it. _Promise_ you'll keep it."

Aiden clenched his jaw, forced his teeth apart and said, "What's it going to do?"

"I can't explain," Marcus said very quietly. He flexed his fingers around the gun. "It's… I need to keep trying, you know. I'm at my limit. Pain helps… _this_ helps, because an end is in sight, but… I can't do it for much longer, not while you're so damn close." He bit his lip, blinked past the gun to fix on Aiden, opened and closed his mouth, but he said nothing more.

"I promise," Aiden said, voice turned harsh and deep.

He bore Marcus' gaze, his entire body pulled tight, but he didn't move until Marcus gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Even then, Aiden seemed to be pulling the trigger in slow motion after another heartbeat passed, one last moment for Marcus to change his mind, or have it changed for him.

It'd be easier if he fought back, it was always easier to shoot someone in the heat of the fight than to execute them in cold blood when they were begging for it. But Marcus' body only trembled slightly from the strain, the war inside his head and the absolute certainty of the gun against him.

Aiden pulled the trigger and the gunshot echoed loudly over the empty roof. The bullet left a small hole in Marcus' forehead, scattered brain and bone fragments out behind him. His eyes were frozen open as his body slumped back and to the side, laying still without even a last shudder.

Aiden lowered the gun and stood still, looking down at him, shivering a little in the cold wind.

* * *

It took a long minute until Aiden shook back into motion and some fluidity returned to his movement. He put the gun away again and stepped close to Marcus, found his phone in the pocket of his jacket, but he didn't use it. Instead, he pulled out the woman's phone and used it to call Jordi.

"Now would be good," he said.

_"You know that place wasn't really designed with a helipad in mind?"_ Jordi's voice came impatient, distorted through bad connection.

"But you can land?"

_"Yes, I can, but…"_

"Then why are we having this conversation?" Aiden interrupted irritably.

_"You can also just grow wings and fly on your own, if you prefer."_

Aiden forced himself to take a deep breath before he answered. He turned on his heels, away from Marcus' body and walked a few steps.

"Can you just get here?"

_"The things I do for you…"_ Jordi said airily. _"And never a word of thanks. Or a please. Or the occasional sorry…"_

Smiling a little despite himself, Aiden said, "What do you think the extra zeroes on your pay-checks are?"

_"Reasonable?"_

He spotted one of the police helicopters fly a wide circle, diverging from whatever routine patrol it pretended to follow and head for Millennium Point.

Aiden was about to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to Marcus' corpse. He hesitated, but then walked back to him, picked his body up and carried it with him and out of the way. He put him down by the roof door he'd come from earlier. As he stood back up, his gaze passed over the gunshot hole. It seemed odd the shot had missed at this distance, even with the strong wind.

Aiden leaned his shoulder into the wall, staring down at Marcus, than pulled the young man's phone out.

It wasn't locked, but it showed only a default starting screen. He went for the menu, but before he could get there, the screen turned white, then wrote black lines across it in the same font Marcus had used to text him before.

He saw a timestamp of a few minutes earlier.

_[Fingerprints recognised. Target acquisition in progress...]_

Aiden had a sinking feeling about it. He turned and put his back flat against the wall, dismantled the phone and took the battery out, but the screen only dimmed. It must have a secondary battery and no doubt Marcus would've known to make it inaccessible without destroying the phone. Clever…

What sorts of mental stunts did you need to perform to help the man you were also trying to kill? How would you outwit your own brainwashing?

Something moved against the smog glow of the city, pitch-black and hard to focus on even when Aiden looked up. The drone hovered in the air across from him. At the edge of his vision he saw the writing on the phone change.

_[Target acquired.]_

Aiden threw himself down in the last second, then a volley of bullets ripped into the wall above him, turned a circle. He saw the drone from the corner of his eyes, adjusting its height, compensating for gusts of wind as it tracked him. He scrambled forward, leaned into the metal door and dropped through, down several steps before he caught himself, pulled himself up and went all the way down. Heat pressed up through the door there.

The firing continued above until it had torn right through the walls and metal door, raining tiny shards of plaster down on him that stung his skin.

When the firing stopped, Marcus' phone announced _[Target acquisition in progress…]_

Aiden pulled out the other phone, dialled T-Bone, but it was Frewer who answer.

"I need to jam a signal," Aiden said and flinched when he heard an explosion from the side. The drone was trying to blow out more of the floor and it made him slightly worried for the structural integrity. Millennium Point itself wasn't so badly damaged it would collapse, but this upper floor was in a much worse state. Aiden pushed his back into the wall, tried to make himself as small as he could.

_"That's… since Blume started rotating their f-frequency the old jam coms don't work…"_

"…don't work for long," Aiden finished impatiently. "They don't have to, just send the hacks."

He could actually track the progress of the drone from the angle of gunfire and the vague tremors in the walls under the impact.

He called Jordi.

_"_ There's _the drone,"_ Jordi said. _"Vicious little thing."_

"Yeah, good news, it'll ignore you, but don't get hit by accident. Just get over here and pick me up."

_"It'll ignore me? Why?"_

"Because it's gunning for me."

_"So when I pick you up…"_

"I can jam the signal it's using to track me, but not for very long. Where are you right now?"

The drone was shooting up some parts on Aiden's left and he edged back up carefully until he reached the door. It was bent out of shape and wouldn't budge until he leaned into it with his full weight.

_"I'm here,"_ Jordi said and the helicopter swung into view from the side, gain some height and rotated so Aiden saw it's open door, inviting him, but he calculated the time it'd take for touchdown, how long he'd take to run over there and how quickly Jordi could take the helicopter back up.

"Stand by," Aiden told him.

By now, the drone had figured out he was back on roof height, but before it could even acquire him, Aiden ducked back into the stairway and ran down. He waited until the drone had relocated to what sounded like the other side of the skyscraper. Coming at him from above seemed the more logical choice, but the drone's construction prevented it from shooting straight down.

He found the hacks Frewer had sent. Blume's frequency upgrade had hit only a few months ago, rendering the jam coms nearly useless and Aiden hadn't yet figured out how to adapt the system. Spamming the things was an option, but not viable for long operations and this phone didn't have a whole lot of memory to do it with. He'd need to deal with the drone some more permanent way. He just hoped Jordi had brought some firepower, but he didn't think he'd have to worry about that.

He strung up the hacks, made one kick in the moment the one before failed. In his estimate, he'd get about three to four minutes out of it, plus the time the drone needed to get back around.

"Jordi?"

_"Standing by,"_ Jordi announced with mocking subservience.

"Ready."

_"Yeah, yeah."_

Aiden engaged the jammer, spotted the confirmation on Marcus' phone and ran up the stairs. He broke through the door, but skidded to a halt when Jordi brought the helicopter down right in front of him. Wind from the rotors beat harshly against him, kicked dust and chunks of debris up so Aiden had to shield his eyes, blinking to clear his vision.

He stashed the woman's phone in his pocket, but kept Marcus' in his hand. He wouldn't risk losing it on the run. He crossed the distance and swung himself through the open door while Jordi already took off, veered so sharply to the side Aiden was almost thrown out again. He cursed, pulled himself into a seat and strapped the seat belt on.

Jordi took the helicopter first out over the lake, then circled back while Aiden pulled the head set on to catch the tail end of a conversation Jordi had with air traffic control.

"What's wrong?" Aiden asked.

"I'm a pork chop, remember? Wasn't supposed to land. Where do we go?"

Aiden watched Marcus' phone, saw the _[Signal lost…]_ change back to _[Target acquisition in progress…]_

He could just toss the phone out the window, sink it into the lake and watch as the drone's programming made it attack a patch of water until it ran out of juice and ammo. No boats were out there tonight, everything had been locked down. There'd not be any more victims of this. Or, he could fight it out, never knowing if it was worth it, if it wasn't just some elaborate trap dreamed up by Marcus in his insanity.

"We need to take the drone down," Aiden said.

"I just knew you'd say that," Jordi sighed. "There's a SMR-501 for you."

A metal box, set into the floor below the seat contained the rifle and a stack of magazines.

"The drone can't fire straight down or up," Aiden said while he set up with the rifle. "It's lighter than we are and somewhat more manoeuvrable, but it doesn't do so well with high winds."

"Yeah, I got it," Jordi said. "I fly, you shoot, no hand-holding."

Jordi brought the helicopter around so the dark of the lake was behind him and Aiden could make out the black drone moving against the backdrop of the city lights. The laser sight of the SMR-501 glinted on the chitinous bulk of the drone and Aiden scanned it for weak spots through the scope.

A moment before the drone opened fire, Jordi let the helicopter drop down and brought it around in a tight circle while the drone tried to follow. Aiden took aim again, though the helicopter shuddered under the strain of Jordi's evasive manoeuvres. Once the drone was back in his crosshairs, Aiden fired. He wasted no time on aiming more than in the general direction of the thing. He hadn't spotted any obvious weaknesses, his best bet seemed to be to just do as much damage as possible to the thing and maybe get lucky at some point.

The drone seemed to be running some kind of AI, giving it enough idea of strategy to do a bit more than just blindly firing at the source of the signal. Some of its maneuvres were unexpectedly clever and difficult to anticipate. Aiden leaned into the seat belt, half hanging outside the open door when Jordi took the helicopter into a steep upward arch to try and bring the drone below them. Aiden's shots punched into the drone's chassis. He must have hit something, because the drone let itself fall down further, seemed almost confused. Aiden shot again, saw the drone shudder, but then it dipped away to the side and out of Aiden's firing line. Only a moment later it gained height on the other side and drew level with them for the first time.

Aiden brought the rifle around and fired again, two shots at close enough quarter he heard the impacts and saw the thin line of white smoke in the darkness. But the drone had charged up its cannons and opened fire, the bullet hissed through the open doors of the helicopter, left some holes in the roof and floor. Through the headset, he heard some alarms go off and Jordi curse in Chinese and English, but the helicopter remained steady when Jordi accelerated forward and climbed, flew a wider circle this time to get some more distance.

Both the helicopter and the drone wove through a series of movements above the lake. The further out they got, the worse the winds were — Aiden had them beat in his face relentless, almost ruining his vision — the less steady the drone seemed.

Abruptly, Jordi slowed down and swerved to the side while the drone still tried to follow the move, bringing it right back in front of Aiden's scope. He aimed a little lower this time, in a moment where their speeds had aligned. The laser traced the bulk of the drone, but the round he fired hit just above one of the rotary cannons. Another shot hit almost the same spot, then the drone managed to evade to the side.

"Again!" Aiden demanded.

"All you've got to do is ask," Jordi announced, sounded like he had the time of his life. "And move your flabby ass to the other side."

Aiden turned, while Jordi performed a similar dance with the drone. "You did _not_ just say that to me."

Jordi chuckled.

The laser found the drone again and this time the rounds were strong enough to damage the cannon, beating it loose from its sockets, rendering it harmless. More than that, it seemed to throw the drone's balance off kilter.

"Just so you know," Jordi said and sounded slightly more serious. "We aren't doing so well ourselves. This chopper isn't made for what I'm making it do. How much longer is it going to take?"

Aiden ejected the spent magazine, jammed a new one in and fired the round into the belly of the drone as Jordi took the helicopter down and past.

"Keep it in sight and I'll down in."

The drone was trailing smoke, badly visible in the darkness, but dispersing the laser when it travelled through it. Aiden shot again and a small explosion followed, tiny bits of flames shooting out from the puncture.

The drone gained height again, higher than it had done before and back. For a moment it almost looked like it would retreat, but the it suddenly dropped low and sped up until it was right below them.

Aiden leaned out over the side, watched the drone swaying. It kept tilting back and the manoeuvre didn't seem to be making any sense, because it kept tipping. It didn't abort even when Aiden shot it twice.

"Shit," he said when he realised what was happening, but he didn't have time to get more of a warning out. The drone wasn't designed to fly in that position, it couldn't. It had tipped too far and fell like a stone, but it still had one functional cannon and it opened fire, tearing through the helicopter from below. A shot seared past Aiden's leg, another cut open his cheek from below. He heard Jordi make an oddly surprised sound over more alarms going off. Something was burning.

Jordi accelerated the helicopter forward, out of range of the drone as it dropped into the lake.

The helicopter lurched, unsteadily, but finally swung around and began heading for the shore.

Marcus' phone said _[Congrats.]_

"The cops must have been bought off," Aiden mused, let his head drap back and allowed himself a moment to relax. He stashed the SMR-501 back into its box. "Can't imagine them stand back and watch an UCAV shoot down one of their own."

"Pearce…"

"What did you tell them anyway?"

" _Pearce_ …"

Aiden tensed at Jordi's tone, loosened the seat belt enough so he could turn and lean into the cockpit. Some smoke coiled there, but he spotted no really bad damage to the cockpit itself.

Jordi had sagged in his seat.

"Ah, fuck," Aiden said when he saw the blood Jordi had coughed up. The fixer turned his head toward him, gloved fingers slowly falling away from the controls.

He said, "I hope you can fly this thing."

"Not very well," Aiden muttered as he got out of the seat belt and climbed into the seat beside Jordi.

"What a downer ending," Jordi commented, he coughed up more blood and his head lolled back.

Aiden scanned the controls, trying to assess what other damage it had down, but all readings seemed acceptable, if not ideal. He sped up, but he felt the resistance and slowed back down. If he didn't want the machine to fall apart under him, he'd better pace himself.

"Jordi," he said, cuffed the fixer in the arm when he didn't answer. Jordi stirred, groaned wetly.

"Round got through your body armour, didn't it?" Aiden continued. "You just keep breathing, try not to pass out."

* * *

Holy Cross Hospital was located on the southern end of the Loop, well beyond what the cops had blocked off around Millennium Point. The survivors from Millennium Point would have been brought into hospitals that lay closer, making Holy Cross a better choice. It didn't make much difference in terms of time or distance, but Aiden didn't think he could save Jordi by landing in the middle of a police blockade. The hospital's helipad was occupied, so Aiden brought the helicopter around and landed on the parking lot outside the ER instead. There was not enough space there, but he paid it no heed, just picked the largest empty spot and took the helicopter down. It's rotor blades chopped at the trees along the sides, scratched and dented parked cars. He crushed the hood of a car under a skid and the helicopter dipped badly to the side, dropped inelegantly the rest of the way.

Jordi grunted at the rough landing and Aiden took it as a good sign, at least he was still alive.

Aiden killed the engine and climbed out, tossed the headset away and dragged Jordi from his seat, slung him over his shoulder, then hoisted him over his back to easier carry him.

The hospital had clearly been placed on alert, but didn't seem to have much more than normal midnight traffic.

His little stunt hadn't gone unnoticed, of course and the people in the ER turned wide-eyes on him as he marched in, waiting patients, doctors and nurses all equally dumbstruck for a long moment. A trail of bloody spit ran down over his shoulder, more on the floor, Jordi's blood and his own, dragging soot from the fire, leaving a dirty trail from the doors to the gurney. Aiden pulled Jordi down and laid him on the gurney.

He stepped back, found and held the gaze of the first doctor that came into his field of vision. A tall, silver-haired woman, holding herself with some poise. It was irritating not to know her name and even her name tag was covered by the fall of her pristine collar.

"Damaged lung," Aiden explained. "Gunshot. About ten minutes ago."

The doctor held his gaze, clearly petrified, but then her gaze dropped away from Aiden and to the man on the gurney and she seemed to shed her skin, drop her fear like something she no longer needed. She gave a nearly imperceptible nod toward Aiden when she stepped forward. With her movement, the spell broke in the people around her. Another doctor rushed forward, followed by some nurses.

Aiden gave them their space, but lingered perhaps longer than he should have, trying to think clearly. Jordi wouldn't like this, but he'd like being dead even less. And Jordi, for all his track-record, Jordi wasn't high-profile and he knew how to get out of sticky situations. He'd talk the cops' ear off, they couldn't jail him while he was in such a bad state and escaping from a hospital would be one of Jordi's easier tricks.

Aiden couldn't stay. He felt the scrutiny of another nurse and under his gaze, he became acutely aware of his own battered state. For the first time in hours he was standing still, without any clear direction and he felt the adrenaline drain from him all at once. He'd collapse if he stayed even a second longer.

He forced himself to move, turn away and walk back to the door.

A security guard stood there, moved to block his path with a hand on the taser on his hip, but he seemed lost and he hadn't drawn the taser, either.

Aiden stopped and did nothing else. Just stood there and looked back at the man, waited, felt how blank his expression was and how unfocussed his stare. He didn't know what the guard saw, he didn't even know how long they stood there. All Aiden could think of was that he wasn't sure if he could take him out, if the guard really tested him.

The guard saw something else. Very slowly, he took the hand away from the taser, then lifted both hands over his head and took several careful steps back.

_Move,_ Aiden thought, but was momentarily puzzled by how it was done. He found himself walking without much conscious thought, one foot before the other, a sharp sting in both his legs. He was aware of the blood that had collected in his boots.

He walked out, didn't stop once he was past the door in case he forgot how to keep going. He looked at the helicopter, but he couldn't even begin to guess what damage the vehicle had sustained, even before that landing.

He should take a car, _any_ car, from the parking lot, there had to be some old enough he could hot wire them by hand, but the bright lights repelled him, so he turned to the right instead and followed the outline of the hospital until he reached a narrow stretch of grass and a wall low enough he could simply step over it.

A street led into a tunnel a few yards on his left. There was some traffic here, but not much of it. Cops must have tried locking down the entire city, not just Mad Mile, or maybe people just stayed home on their own.

Aiden followed the street toward the tunnel, until from one moment to the next, even another step seemed too much.

He leaned into the wall, felt the solidity of concrete at his back, freezing cold on his feverish skin. It was abrasive and it scratched as he slipped down on it. He came to sit on the two phones, the handgun and the screwdriver. He pulled the phones up, stared at Marcus' for a long time. It's screen had turned off. Slowly, he pulled up the other one, his fingers felt like lead as he typed. He pressed it into his ear and listened to the ringing.

_"Screaming Jesus on a ferris wheel! Aiden, where are you?"_ T-Bone's voice tore him back into reality. Into the cold of the street, the stink of trash and urine around him.

Aiden looked up, stared at the buildings across the street and found nothing familiar there. He looked up and down, but spotted no sign that'd help him orient himself.

"Don't know," he said. "Near Holy Cross hospital. Just ping me."

_"Alright, I see you,"_ T-Bone announced after a moment of blissful silence. _"Just hang in there, I'll get you."_

T-Bone seemed to be in a car already, the chatter of a radio in the background, noise of traffic and the distant humming of an engine. Aiden listened to it, concentrated on the tiny pieces of sound filtering through. He pulled his legs up and let his head drop to a knee, taking some of the strain off his neck.

_"What the hell happened?"_ T-Bone asked.

"Not sure where to start," Aiden said, but wasn't sure it came out audible.

_"DedSec? Looks a bit too hands-on for them…"_

"DedSec's gone," Aiden interrupted. "Marcus sold them out to Blume to get to me."

_"Marcus…?"_

"Brenks."

_"Nothing good ever comes out of that name,"_ T-Bone growled. _"So Blume attacked Millennium Point? Was it Corporate Police?"_

"I'm not sure they were Corporate Police, seemed more like mercenaries, paramilitary types," Aiden said, though he thought his tongue was too thick to keep going. "T-Bone… it's a mess. I can't explain it right now."

_"Sure, you just hold out,_ " T-Bone made a good attempt at sounding unconcerned when he was anything but. Silence dropped like the lid on a coffin and Aiden listened to his own breathing and T-Bone's through the phone.

The phone began to slip, jolting Aiden back awake, he pulled tight before it dropped.

T-Bone said, _"I'm listening to the news here. You landed a chopper in front of the hospital?"_

"Did."

_"Maybe you should find yourself another outlet,"_ T-Bone suggested with weak humour.

Aiden let it roll over him, too tired to muster a reaction. The cold of the wall was seeping through his skin and muscles, right into his bones.

_"Ever thought of bowling?"_ T-Bone inquired.

"You don't have to keep me talking," Aiden pointed out. "I'm not dying here. Just tired. Been the longest day I remember."

_"Are you sure? Because if I thought you'd listen, I'd send you right back into that hospital."_

"I'd never walk out again," Aiden said. "We both know that."

_"Shit, yes, we do,"_ T-Bone conceded after a pause. _"But it gets worse from here, buddy. You can't stay there. Police are searching the perimeter of the hospital. You need to get out of dodge."_

Aiden lifted his head up and sucked in the night-air, it smelled of damp asphalt and gunmetal, a hint of blood, spilled gasoline.

_"Aiden…"_ T-Bone's voice again, dragging him back.

"I got it," Aiden said through clenched teeth, it felt like a snarl in his throat, but came out wheezing. He sucked in another gulp of air, still didn't seem to be getting enough, but it would have to do.

_"You just keep moving, I'll make sure they stay off your track."_

Aiden braced himself, then pushed back into the wall and slowly upward. The concrete was just as resistant as it had been going down, perhaps it ripped open some already closed wound, some of the blisters he didn't really feel yet.

He straightened away from the wall, glanced up the street a last time, but headed for the tunnel.

In the distance, the first sirens made themselves heard, already closing in on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References:**
> 
> The (fictional) SMR-501 is the 2020s version of the (existent) SR-25 sniper rifle the cops use in-game.
> 
> T-Bone quotes video games when he's agitated.
> 
> **Author's Note:** I originally wanted an epic fight between Marcus and Aiden, but I think this is better. Aiden did enough fighting for one story and Marcus… Marcus is barely coherent anymore anyway. I really wish it wouldn't have been like that, but I've got to be honest about these things. I love the guy, by the way, and I think I'll write him his own chapter. Dive deeper into that madness, but I still need to figure out how to approach it.
> 
> The character death warning is for Marcus. However, I also don't feel very confident about Jordi…
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised on 11/May/2017**


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did kind of write myself into a corner. I didn't really want a fixed continuity within Brilliancy, but now there are so many stories and I'm coming up against Quaint Old World. I need to convince Aiden to wuss out and go hide for ten years, considering the somewhat symbiotic relationship I have with my lead, that's not as easy as it sounds.
> 
> Marcus' phone's contents will be explained in time.

Aiden wasn't sure if he'd been asleep or in a coma. He certainly felt like he'd been out cold for some indeterminable amount of time. When he woke up, he found himself lying on top of the blankets in a strange bed. Someone had thrown a heavy quilt over him and his body ached when he rolled to his back and stared at the low ceiling, followed the pipes with his gaze and let his mind running idle.

He had been lucky. The cops had already been stretched too thin over the disaster at Millennium Point, kept in the dark about what was really going on by their colleagues at Blume, they hadn't managed to come down fast enough around Holy Cross and he'd been able to slip away. T-Bone had done the rest, manufactured some 911 calls that got most of them to move the other way, cleared enough room for him to pick Aiden up.

In the chaos, not even a mob doctor was available to patch Aiden together so Frewer had done the stitches and not half-bad, too, all things considered. Even now, Aiden smelled the disinfectant on his skin, mixed with the scent of the salve on the burns. Everything stung and ached and hurt. If he never had to move again, he'd be just fine, but he was just coming down hard after all of it. It'd pass with a couple more hours of sleep and a handful of painkillers.

T-Bone and Frewer were talking in an adjoining room, but they weren't loud enough to understand. What came through clearly, though, was the television.

_"…last night a series of explosions shook the Millennium Point building in Mad Mile. While the cause is still not entirely certain, authorities suspect a gas leak which ignited and climbed through the pipes into other floors. Why the safeties were offline is still unknown. Blume has so far merely said they are investigating the issue, but they think a hacker attack might be possible, though no city structure has been hacked on this scale since ctOS 2.0 went online ten years ago._

_At this time, most people have been evacuated from the building, but firefighters are still searching the upper floors, which suffered the worst damage. However, the building is currently considered stable and most fires have been extinguished._

_Unfortunately, so far the incident has caused eleven dead and serious injuries number among the hundreds among tenants and emergency crews._

_It also seems that confusion has caused some strange stories to spring up. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen armed men and even a drone, however, CPD has so far not confirmed their claim, a spokesman has pointed out that people are often confused in such circumstances. We'll have the full story for you in half an hour only on WKZ. In the meantime the news. We are starting with good news for the stock market: Blume's acquisition of Uplink, a social media company, has given both companies' rates a significant boost…"_

Aiden pushed himself up, groaned at the jarring pain in all the muscles of his body, resisting even that small movement. Bandages and band-aids strained all over his body. He rubbed a hand down his face, tried flexing his shoulders and neck, but it didn't help much. Taking a breath to steel himself, he forced himself to stand and padded bare-feet to the door, stopped there to lean into the doorway and wait for his eyes to adjust.

Across the room, a massive rig of stacked servers and computer screens occupied the entire wall. Some of them filled with surveillance feeds, others ran lines of data, some were darkened. Bits and pieces of electronic equipment littered the entire room.

An old couch stood in front of a television and a few metal crates served as tables in front of it, laden with takeaway boxes and several wired up tablets and laptops.

T-Bone and Frewer sat on the couch, eating, both looked up when he walked in.

"Thanks," Aiden said.

"You're welcome," T-Bone grinned, but his expression fell immediately. "We puzzled it together."

"Really?"

"Are you hungry?" Frewer asked. "You… uh… you look really bad."

Aiden arched his brows and said nothing, shook his head. "What do you think happened?"

T-Bone waved with a plastic fork, then dipped it back in the box to retrieve a chunk of curried chicken. "Feel free to chime in with whatever other information you have…"

Aiden shook his head, interrupted, "Marcus Brenks was brainwashed by a variant of Bellwether into hunting me down. He… I don't know. I think he snapped and hatched some kind of plan to trick Blume or… maybe to trick me. He'd struck a deal with Blume, gave them DedSec in exchange for the data."

"Two for the price of one," T-Bone remarked.

Frewer frowned. "Why him? Uh, you? I mean… Blume has been going after Ray and me for years, why… you know, all of it?" he paused. "Don't get me wrong. Not… not envious or anything."

Aiden smiled darkly. "The difference is, I kick up a lot of dirt. That's a lot of potential targets for harbinger to manipulate. You two are doing a much better job of keeping out of the news. There are…" He hesitated, closed his eyes for only a moment. "I give a lot of people a reason to hate me."

Frewer's gaze flitted away from Aiden, down into his food, then around the room as if looking for something to settle on. "I t-told you not to carry a gun," he said finally.

Aiden snorted and turned away from them, looked around the room then shook into motion with some effort. He stalked across the room to an overladen shelf. It contained printouts and disemboweled computers, but one compartment had been reserved for a nice collection of bottles and a stack of shot glasses.

"Yeah," Aiden said. "It's good advice."

"Ain't the end of it," T-Bone said. "Most of our DedSec contacts have gone silent in the last few hours. The news gets sidelined, of course, but Corporate Police have raided all sorts of places all across the country. Looks like most of DedSec's being pulled out by the roots."

His expression darkened, when he added, "That Brenks boy certainly doesn't do things by halves."

"He was completely insane," Aiden said as he picked out one of the bottles and took three of the shot glasses with him, carried everything back to the crates and set it down. He cleared some space on another crate to sit down on before he opened the bottle. "He didn't deserve what Blume did to him."

"N-No one does," Frewer said quietly.

Aiden didn't look at him, focused on pouring a glass.

"Have you looked at Marcus' phone?"

"No," T-Bone answer, glanced across the room to the desk, where Marcus' phone lay in a meshed box, keeping it isolated. "I thought you'd want a go at it first."

Aiden shrugged. "Actually, if it's booby-trapped, it's more likely to react to me, you should be save."

T-Bone nodded, "I'll look it over later. Can't wait to see what that screwball's cooked up."

Aiden emptied his glass, set it back down with a low chink.

Frewer said, "Something m-more is going on."

"More?" Aiden asked.

"Worse," T-Bone corrected with a grimace.

" _Worse_?"

"Hard to believe, don't even say it," T-Bone growled. "But all kinds of shit are going down on a _global_ scale. Blume ain't got the overblown rights they do here in the rest of the world, but they still have enough pull. It looks like they've got authorities to move against hackers everywhere. Whole patches of the Darknet are going quiet."

Aiden downed another shot, set the glass back down and refilled it.

"How much of the data do we still have?" Aiden asked.

"Not much," T-Bone said and sighed. "It phoned home, cracked my network wide open and some script kiddie at Blume's had his fingers all over it. Made a right mess of things, too."

"The data's the key," Aiden said. "If we can reconstruct it, we stand a chance."

He looked from one to the other, then took a deep breath when he saw the truth of it in their expressions. "So that's how it's gonna be," he concluded, more to himself.

Frewer glanced at T-Bone, then said, "M-maybe…but the data is really badly damaged. It won't be a l-lot."

"Or we move in on Blume," T-Bone said. "Get a clean copy."

"If I were Blume I'd use the chance to clean house," Aiden shook his head. "Everyone they don't trust, they can just blame them for the malfunctions in Millennium Point tonight… _last_ night… and fire them for it. Gets rid of all DedSec sympathisers and wannabe whistleblowers, too. Everyone with a weakness we can exploit."

He looked at the television screen, where the weather forecast chattered along happily about sunny spring weather and cloudless sky. In the ticker below it said: _Vigilante involved in Millennium Point disaster?_ They were already starting the blame-game, it seemed.

"They can hide a lot of controversial moves, this'll take the headlines for at least a week."

T-Bone put his food down and threw himself back on the couch.

"There's got to be a way," he said. "I came too far just to go down now."

"The thing is," Aiden said slowly as he poured himself another glass. "We have a few more months of access, before Blume is ready to go. Maybe more, if their proposed legislation sparks some controversy."

"Gives us time," T-Bone mused. "Find some chink in their armour. I like the idea."

Aiden shook his head. "No," he said, put the glass to his lips, but hesitated. "That's not… well, I guess you could try. But I'm thinking it's the last chance to get out of it."

"What do you mean?" T-Bone asked, but he already knew, it was obvious enough.

Frewer swallowed hard on some badly chewed piece in his mouth, blinking rapidly. His gaze skittered between Aiden and T-Bone, but he said nothing.

Aiden suppressed a tired sigh. "We've always known it was gonna happen. And we've always known we were on the losing side. We still have our access, not to Blume directly, but the whole country still runs on their old software. That's an exit strategy. I'll use it. You can do what you want, of course."

Frewer cleared his throat with some effort, lowered the box in his hand and said, "Do you… uh, maybe you should… sleep on it?"

Aiden laughed dryly and drank again.

"I hate to say it," T-Bone said. "But that sounds like a damn good idea."

Aiden dropped the hand with the glass, stared T-Bone down for a long moment. "We don't get out now, we'll be _taken_ out."

He could tell he wasn't being convincing and it took him a long minute until he mustered enough energy to care. But he owed T-Bone as much, he owed Frewer. They'd pulled him from the fire often enough.

"Look at it," he explained. "Maybe we can track down some Blume secretary with an animal porn collection or a gambling problem and we put the thumbscrews on them. Let's pretend that's enough to get us back in. And then? What's the next move?"

"Do _you_ want to let Blume keep playing with brainwashing software?" T-Bone asked sharply.

"No," Aiden said, stared off into space and thought of Marcus. It was too late now, but he couldn't stop wondering if there had ever existed some way to save him. "But they've had it for decades and I'm sure they've been using it. Made no difference that I was there, or the two of you, or even DedSec. I'm not seeing how it'd make a difference if we aren't there."

"That's your point?" T-Bone asked, sounding irritated. "You got burned once and now you've lost your taste for it?"

"If that's what you want to think," Aiden offered with a shrug.

"No, it's not _what I want to think,"_ T-Bone snapped.

Aiden said. "You went into hiding before." He looked at Frewer. "Both of you."

"Ain't the best time in my life," T-Bone growled, but he seemed to have already spent his energy and his expression had become pensive even before he finished speaking. He could see the truth as well as Aiden, perhaps even clearer. He knew more about Blume and he'd probably had some more time to look at the data before it went up in smoke.

T-Bone put his chin forward. "Are you ever going to share that mezcal or do you plan to kill the bottle alone?"

Aiden allowed himself a quick smirk, but it was gone by the time he had filled the other glasses and handed them over.

"I don't d-drink that," Frewer said.

"Once won't kill you," T-Bone said, gave a dismissive wave with one hand.

T-Bone studied Aiden for a long time. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Know when you're beaten," Aiden said. He tipped his glass at the other two.

The television started showing aerial footage of Millennium Point and the deep scars the drone attack and the gas explosions had left on it. The upper floors seemed to have collapsed and it was still burning, sheathed the building in thick smoke, black and dirty even in the soft afternoon light.

It was, come to think of it, a pretty good representation of their situation and how it was going to end. Aiden had seen only very little of what Blume had planned, but it was more than enough. Praeterea would close all the old doors and Blume had the power to force whatever legislation they wanted. If all else failed, they could just loosen Bellwether on a few senators and justices, provided they didn't have the necessary dirt on them already. They were taking the grey places away, in the real world and online. Twenty years ago, Aiden would have laughed at the thought. He'd grown up with an internet that was inherently anarchistic and uncontrollable, a playground for all variations of predators. He'd never expected it all to become so defenceless.

"Cheers," T-Bone said and made it sound like a eulogy.

Even the mezcal tasted of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Reference:**
> 
> Uplink: a shareware hacking game by Ambrosia Software. I suck so much at it you wouldn't believe… but it's also kind of fun.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised on 11/May/2017**


End file.
